How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

Emotions feel automatic to us; that's why scientists have long assumed that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. This paradigm shift has far-reaching implications not only for psychology but also medicine, the legal system, airport security, child-rearing, and even meditation.

Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."

Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience

In the mid-20th century, Michael S. Gazzaniga made one of the great discoveries in the history of neuroscience: split-brain theory, the notion that the right and left hemispheres of the brain can act independently from each other and have different strengths.

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Why do we do the things we do? More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful, but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: He starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs and then hops back in time from there in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition

The Myth of Mirror Neurons, neuroscientist Gregory Hickok reexamines the mirror neuron story and finds that it is built on a tenuous foundation - a pair of codependent assumptions about mirror neuron activity and human understanding. Drawing on a broad range of observations from work on animal behavior, modern neuroimaging, neurological disorders, and more, Hickok argues that the foundational assumptions fall flat in light of the facts.

Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts

How does the brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.

The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease, and Inheritance

Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the 20-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics.

From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

What is human consciousness, and how is it possible? This question fascinates thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution, brains, and human culture.

Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind

Joe Dispenza, DC, has spent decades studying the human mind-how it works, how it stores information, and why it perpetuates the same behavioral patterns over and over. In the acclaimed film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, he began to explain how the brain evolves - by learning new skills, developing the ability to concentrate in the midst of chaos, and even healing the body and the psyche. Evolve Your Brain presents this information in depth, while helping you take control of your mind.

Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think

Oxford professor and author Viktor Mayer-Schönberger joins Economist data editor and commentator Kenneth Cukier to deliver insight into the hottest trend in technology. "Big data" makes it possible to instantly analyze and draw conclusions from vast stores of information, enabling revolutionary breakthroughs in business, health, politics, and education. But big data also raises troubling social and privacy concerns sure to be a major talking point in the years ahead.

Ten years from today, the center of our digital lives will no longer be the smart phone, but device that looks like ordinary eyeglasses: except those glasses will have settings for virtual and augmented reality. What you really see and what is computer generated will be mixed so tightly together, that we won't really be able to tell what is real and what is illusion.

The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World

Under the aegis of machine learning in our data-driven machine age, computers are programming themselves and learning about - and solving - an extraordinary range of problems, from the mundane to the most daunting. Today it is machine learning programs that enable Amazon and Netflix to predict what users will like, Apple to power Siri's ability to understand voices, and Google to pilot cars.

Sapiens

Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it. Us. We are the most advanced and most destructive animals ever to have lived. What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us sapiens? In this bold and provocative audiobook, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here, and where we're going.

The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time

Depression can feel like a downward spiral, pulling you down into a vortex of sadness, fatigue, and apathy. Based in the latest research in neuroscience, this audiobook offers dozens of little things you can do every day to rewire your brain and create an upward spiral towardsa happier, healthier life.

The Enlightened Brain: The Neuroscience of Awakening

There's been a major breakthrough in the world's oldest research experiment. For over 2,500 years, Buddhist meditators have investigated the human psyche. Now with the help of modern neuroscience, we have gained an unprecedented understanding of how the brain responds to meditation practice - which gives you powerful tools for changing your own brain for more happiness, love, and wisdom.

Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience

In recent years, the advent of MRI technology seems to have unlocked the secrets of the human mind, revealing the sources of our deepest desires, intentions, and fears. As renowned psychiatrist and scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld demonstrate in Brainwashed, however, the explanatory power of brain scans in particular and neuroscience more generally has been vastly overestimated.

The Brain Electric: The Dramatic High-Tech Race to Merge Minds and Machines

Leading neuroscience researchers are racing to unlock the secrets of the mind. On the cusp of decoding brain signals that govern motor skills, they are developing miraculous technologies to enable paraplegics and wounded soldiers to move prosthetic limbs, and the rest of us to manipulate computers and other objects through thought alone. These fiercely competitive scientists are vying for Defense Department and venture capital funding, prestige, and great wealth.

Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior

Every day of your life is spent surrounded by mysteries that involve what appear to be rather ordinary human behaviors. What makes you happy? Where did your personality come from? Why do you have trouble controlling certain behaviors? Why do you behave differently as an adult than you did as an adolescent?Since the start of recorded history, and probably even before, people have been interested in answering questions about why we behave the way we do.

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such problems for decades.

Improving Brain Function, Memory and Consciousness: A Focus on Neuroplasticity and Neuroscience

This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to improve brain, function, memory and consciousness, which are examined through the lens of neuroscience and neuroplasticity. It contains an end-to-end analysis of strategies improving brain's functionality with respect to age, brain capacity and health. Additionally, it puts forward that while having poor memory is exceptionally normal, particularly in older people, you ought to be concerned in the event that it begins hindering your typical regular exercises.

When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

Ray Kurzweil, the bold futurist and author of the New York Times best seller The Singularity Is Near, is arguably today’s most influential technological visionary. A pioneering inventor and theorist, he has explored for decades how artificial intelligence can enrich and expand human capabilities. Now, in his much-anticipated How to Create a Mind, he takes this exploration to the next step: reverse-engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works, then applying that knowledge to create vastly intelligent machines.

Thinking Like an Economist: A Guide to Rational Decision Making

Economic forces are everywhere around you. But that doesn't mean you need to passively accept whatever outcome those forces might press upon you. Instead, with these 12 fast-moving and crystal clear lectures, you can learn how to use a small handful of basic nuts-and-bolts principles to turn those same forces to your own advantage.

Publisher's Summary

A pioneering neuroscientist shows how the long-sought merger of brains with machines is about to become a paradigm-shifting reality.

Imagine living in a world where people use their computers, drive their cars, and communicate with one another simply by thinking. In this stunning and inspiring work, Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis shares his revolutionary insights into how the brain creates thought and the human sense of self - and how this might be augmented by machines, so that the entire universe will be within our reach.

Beyond Boundaries draws on Nicolelis's ground-breaking research with monkeys that he taught to control the movements of a robot located halfway around the globe by using brain signals alone. Nicolelis's work with primates has uncovered a new method for capturing brain function - by recording rich neuronal symphonies rather than the activity of single neurons. His lab is now paving the way for a new treatment for Parkinson's, silk-thin exoskeletons to grant mobility to the paralyzed, and breathtaking leaps in space exploration, global communication, manufacturing, and more.

Beyond Boundaries promises to reshape our concept of the technological future, to a world filled with promise and hope.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

Miguel Nicolelis, a Duke University neuroscientist, is a leader in brain-machine-interface research. He has produced in “Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines – and How It Will Change Our Lives” a history of neuroscience and a description of the research in the field. In particular, he describes his work with rats and then monkeys which have been able to manipulate robots through the use of their brains – alone. Others have been involved in such research and their work is aptly displayed for the reader and placed into context. This research holds great promise for use with humans particularly having muscular disability. Immediately, I could see the use of this technology with light exoskeletons which would help individuals to walk or use their arms without help. The history of neuroscience may be a little much for those just encountering the field. However, I think that almost anyone can follow Nicolelis’ story and descriptions of his work. This is cutting edge research and Nicolelis allows the uninitiated a window on what is coming to be. The reading is exactly what you have come to expect from Patrick Egan – wonderful.

A neuroscience memoir of thought-provoking work, experimental brain interfaces and thought control tests told through the lens of Nicolelis' own academic history and Brazilian based life story.

The book offers specific and compelling evidence for not only controlling robotic systems remotely, but also for how our brain is naturally built to incorporate external apparatus and sense data directly into the body map and further into the sense of self, for brain connected robotics that restore the ability to walk to the paralyzed, for thought-based personal interaction, and even for direct brain to brain connections that create literal brain networks and a higher order of complexity.

Very inspiring concrete experiments to shake some of these formerly sci-fi concepts loose from their intermediate fiction. Indeed the specifics of the experimental methods are sharp enough to be double-edged, disengaging from the overall visionary narrative to bring the reader back down into the due diligence of science and Nicolelis' experience as researcher and academic, which, while important to establish the validity of the book's premise, are less accessible than the grand ideas described in the preceding paragraph. Still, Nicolelis does it right by interspersing anecdotes of Brazilian football matches or personal history to keep the book moving.

With regard to the audiobook Patrick Egan reads the book well for the most part, though I found a few phrasings lacking in what I think was the author's tonal intent, and in particular I often found myself wishing Mr. Egan would quicken his pace somewhat (though the slower reading during the technically dense material was quite appropriate).

Miguel, may be a genius, however, I'll have to actually read this book in paper or digital format. Patrick Egan's narration was painful for me to listen to. Usually I can find some redeeming value in even the most challenging narrator, but in this case I had to stop listening.

Has Beyond Boundaries turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, I love this genre

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Dry, over enunciated, and a bit pompous, are a few adjectives I'd use to describe the narration

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Beyond Boundaries?

Couldn't get past the first narrated chapter. I'll let you know after I read the book.

Couldn't stand the narrator. You don't need to ennunciate every syllable like it's the most important thing you've ever said. The runtime of the book could likely have been half as long or less, which would have suited the content better.

The author adds his own contribution to the unnecessary plod of this book. Very little on the actual topic, just a hasty single chapter at the end, and padded again and again with irrelevant, egocentric anecdotes. He is essentially recounting his own work and nothing else, the most important of which is really just two papers that you can read in an hour. Essentially this is a 14 hour press release, and while other books on neuroscience are likely the same they may be less painful to listen to.

While the writer's attempts to make a scientific field more personal with humor and anecdotes mostly fell flat or were distracting rather than illuminating, the overall description of the history, theory, as well as the experiments. more than made up for those bad bits of writing. It's not just a book of hopeful speculation, but provides insights into current achievements and practical applications of the theory. Great stuff.

Miguel Nicolelis' describing the implications of BMI's and BMBI's was so eloquent and romantic. I couldn't help myself from yelping in joy while I was listening to his book. I was very moved and I truly hope the future of neuro tech unfolds as Dr. Nicolelis prescribes. Amazing work!!! And Patrick Egan was awesome! A definite must for those who are optimistic about the future of technology and society. As for those cynics, you should listen too! Dr. Nicolelis provides an excellent argument for his stance. Great piece of work!

If you are looking for a pedantic recounting of the history of neuroscience this book is for you. There is far more boring detail than is necessary to communicate the interesting concepts, and there is far too little insightful theory.

Would you try another book written by Miguel Nicolelis or narrated by Patrick Egan?

I would absolutely try another book written by Miguel Nicolelis or narrated by Patrick Egan - especaially if Dr. Nicolelis who is a splendind storyteller and has been involved in breathtaking neuroscience research would tune down the drawn out anectdotes and ceaseless soccer-parrallels.

What other book might you compare Beyond Boundaries to, and why?

"Beyond Boundaries" have great things in common with neuroscience classics like Pinker's "How The Mind Works" and Damasio's "Descartes' error", mixing vivid case stories with his own scientific thinking.

What does Patrick Egan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Egan has a comforting voice, and genuinely sounds like he's telling his own science stories.

If this book were a film would you go see it?

Well...hm... there is stuff for several almost sci-fi movies in this non-fiction book. Sure, I'd go see a movie based on it.

Any additional comments?

The only snag is, that this book is too long. Dr. Nicolelis is doing an admirable job of trying to soften up the difficult scientific content with anecdotes and real-world examples (notably drawn from soccer when trying to explain complex systems dynamics), but he shoots way over the proverbial goal. The book would have been better if edited down by at least 25%. I'm pursuing a phd with strong neuroscience components, and even I couldn't finish it, but had to take it up several times.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Fenando

Vina del Mar, Chile

4/13/13

Overall

"Welcome to the future"

Nicolelis is not a futurist. He is part of the future. I have been following his research since the 90's.

It just incredible to have the opportunity to get into ideas that a scientist's mind is getting while doing cutting edge science. He is not just a hardcore researcher, but also a visionary. He is not just dreaming the future, he is building it.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Amazon Customer

8/29/11

Overall

"interesting but...."

It is a fascinating topic and there are very engaging parts of the book but overall it becomes bogged down in details making it a little laborious for the ordinary listener.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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